Transform Ourselves Into Beasts
by Aelfay Sparrow
Summary: Sebastian Moran is drunk. And those are lovely brown eyes.
1. Transform Ourselves Into Beasts

Sebastian Moran, previous Colonel in her Majesty's army, was drunk.

Rephrase: he was completely, utterly smashed. One hundred percent pissed.

Thank fuck for alcohol, he thought to himself as he reached for the bottle on the bedside table. The biggest problem with this plan was trying to figure out which bottle to reach for. There were at least three. No, four. No, just two. Hell, he was drunk. Fucking army. Fucking discharge. Ha! He'd managed to grab the beer. He was brilliant.

He looked up after a swig and glanced around the room he was in. He hated this room. It was nice enough for what he could afford, but the brown panelled walls (as per the 70's), the shag carpet, the puke green tile in the bathroom, the brown ceiling, brown doors, brown eyes.

"Actually, those aren't bad," he said out loud, then hiccuped and rolled over to stare at them better, as they were the most interesting things in the room. They rolled up, then sideways, sharp pools of empty brown.

"I do hope you realise everything you just attempted to say was entirely incomprehensible," said a dry, Irish voice, and Seb realised the eyes were attached to lips.

Fuck.

Lips.

He licked his own and leaned forward...

And fell off the bed.

"Damn alco- alchom- booze," he managed to spit out, and pushed himself up. He was going to attempt the complicated manoeuvre of turning to sit on the floor when he felt cold round metal nudge the base of his skull.

He froze.

The thing about being himself, he thought a second later, as he straddled thin legs, was that he couldn't stop being himself, which was annoying when one was actively trying to die by alcohol overdose but still somehow managed not to want to die really; as proven by his evasion of the gun.

No, he thought, actually he did want to die, but it was the principle of the thing that he was gonna be the one to off himself; thanks very much for the offer tho.

The legs underneath him shook, and he looked down to find the brown eyes from before, sparkling now, as the lips laughed. "Do you realise you said all of that out loud?" they laughed, and he didn't like being laughed at.

He frowned and tried to cover them up, but his hand was full of gun, so he had to use his other hand, but it was full of bottle and he didn't want to let go of that, so instead he ended up doing the practical thing.

He leant down and covered those laughing lips with his own.

Fuck that was good. That was lovely and soft and lush-

The bright pain crossing his chest wasn't nearly as pleasant, and he reared away from those lovely soft lips to look down at himself, where a red line opened across his shirt.

Damn. He liked that shirt.

"Boss?" came a voice from the door, and Sebastian let the hand holding the gun move from the forehead above the pretty brown eyes to aim at the face at the door, which went pale, and then dropped as the man fell with a hole just to the left of the centre of his forehead.

"Not sighted right," Seb grunted, annoyed, and shot again at the body, this time dead on as he compensated for the slight inaccuracy of the tool.

That done, he turned to look back down at those brown eyes, which were now narrowed, assessing him. His chest hurt and he frowned down at them and those ever-lovely lips. He wanted to kiss them again but he didn't want to get slashed with the knife. Choices.

The pretty lips pursed and the eyes began to twinkle. Sebastian suspected he was talking out loud again.

"May I have a sip?"

Seb frowned - how many hands did he have? - before finding the correct appendage and pressing the edge of the bottle to the swollen pink of the lower lip. He watched the beer disappear slowly from the bottle, and when it got too low to suit he brought the bottle back to his own mouth, tasting another flavour on the edges of the beer.

A bit later - he didn't really know what had happened, or how, as he didn't care much - he found himself back in bed, but a hand was pulling away his beer bottle and he wasn't happy about it.

"Oh, stop that," said the voice from before. "Wrong day to die."

Sebastian shook his head, annoyed. "Right day," he muttered. "Haddit alllll planned."

"Yes, but my plans are better," said the plush lips. "And include far more guns. Sleep for you now, I think."

A jab in Sebastian's shoulder and he felt himself begin to drift off, but as he slipped away he heard a voice order, "Get rid of all the alcohol. Colonel Moran will need to be sober for his assignment in the morning."

Oh, good. A mission then, he thought as things went black. He could put off dying for another day.

* * *

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! ~William Shakespeare, Othello

This was written from a prompt for noottersontheflightdeck on Tumblr, who is my very own homicidal tiger.


	2. For I Am Falser

Jim was excited. He bounced on his toes and grinned widely at the man across from him in the lift, who flinched and drew his jacket closer, as if it would somehow make the gun within more lethal if it were closer to his hand. Jim frowned; idiot. It made it moronically obvious that he had a gun when he did that. What was the point if carrying a concealed weapon if it didn't stay concealed?

Oh well, he consoled himself, he wouldn't have to deal with this much longer if all went well. He'd watched this particular sniper's progress since his first letter of commendation in the army. The man had managed to break the distance record for a hit within his first tour and had climbed the ranks from private to colonel before getting dishonourably discharged.

It really was a pity the army had lost the fellow, but it was good news for Jim. That idiot had been the perfect little mole to sacrifice, and all it had taken was a bit of spiked booze, a well-placed homophobic taunt, and a handy gun before the colonel had cracked and the bloke had gone down with a hole in the chest. Perfectly satisfactory. Jim had felt proud of his work; of course the man with the hole in his chest would probably have disagreed. He'd thought the gay joke was a code phrase to get certain information. Poor little dead moron.

Mo~ron, his brain sang happily, and he bounced again before the lift doors hissed and he stepped out onto a truly disgusting orange carpet. He frowned and made a mental note to burn these shoes when he got home.

The door was unlocked and he opened it to a frantic whisper from the "bodyguard" behind him - "boss, shouldn't I go first?" - and then he stood in the doorway and frowned.

Well; this would never do.

The man (Moran, his brain gleefully supplied) was good-looking to a fault. That would be distracting and it was entirely unnecessary for his line of work. Jim made another mental note: add some scarring to counteract the effect.

Oh, but wasn't that a lovely thought. He contemplated it for a few moments, scanning the face and chest and deciding exactly where the wounds would go, before he got distracted by the ex-colonel's mutterings.

"Brah an' brah an' brah an' aie," he muttered. "Archully nah bah."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "I do hope you realise everything you just attempted to say was entirely incomprehensible," he told the man, who looked at him blankly and then rolled over with some effort, only to fall off the bed in a tumble of limbs.

While the sniper attempted to remember how to pronounce alcohol, Jim thumbed the safety off his gun (the bodyguard behind him gave a sharp inhale; yes, that is how you conceal a weapon) and pressed it to the back of the man's neck. Contracts were always easier to hammer out when someone was at gunpoint.

A moment later he found himself on his back, legs kicked out from under him, gun wrenched from his hand, and eyes blinking up at two chilly pools of blue as Colonel Sebastian Moran attempted to focus. Oh, this was interesting, much more fun than anything else that had happened this week.

"The thing is," the Colonel rumbled from above him, eyes sharp but far away, "is that I can't stop being myself, which is annoying when I'm trying to drink myself to death. But apparently I don't actually want to die, or I wouldn't have your gun..."

Jim pursed his lips as he struggled not to laugh; the Colonel paused for a moment as he seemed to contemplate for a moment.

"No," he said decisively a moment later, and Jim noted his diction seemed to improve when threatened, "no, actually, I do want to die. But it's the principle of the thing, you know, that I'm the one to off me. Thanks for the offer, though."

And Sebastian Moran looked down at Jim earnestly and nodded, and Jim couldn't hold back the giggles anymore.

"Do you realise," he snickered, "that you said all of that out loud?"

A frown crossed over the pretty face above him, and a hand moved to cover his mouth, but Moran seemed to be frustrated and confused by trying to both hold the gun and shut Jim up. He tried the other hand and got annoyed again at the beer bottle in it. Jim's chuckles just increased as the sniper looked more and more bemused, staring down at his mouth with a dazed frown.

And then his laughter stopped abruptly as rough, chapped lips pressed against his.

Jim stared at the face above him, noting with slight surprise that the Colonel had his eyes closed, seemingly trusting the man pinned under him.

Well, that was ridiculous. He should know better. And Jim had been looking forward to adding those scars...

A quick slash had the man rearing up, looking down at his chest with a frown as his gun hand moved to point at Jim's forehead. Jim admired his work; a nice slash from the top of one pectoral to the bottom of the other.

"Boss?" the bodyguard at the door stuttered out. Jim had nearly forgotten about the man, useless as he was. So when Moran swung the gun up and shot, he really didn't mind at all.

After all; the carpet was so terrible that he was pretty certain the bloodstains would be an improvement.

It was a good shot - on the forehead, near the centre - but the sniper frowned. "Not sighted right," he muttered, and shot again at the limp body on the floor. This one was dead centre, and Jim couldn't help but assess the expression of the man above him, who had just killed a man and gotten a knife wound to the chest and looked more annoyed that the sight on the gun was a centimetre off.

He pursed his lips and Sebastian Moran frowned down at him before murmuring, "I wanna kiss 'em again. But I don' wanna get slashed. Choices."

Jim raised an eyebrow and nodded to the beer with his chin. "May I have a sip?"

It took a bit of fumbling due to the drunken uncoordination on the part of the sniper, but eventually a bottle was pressed to Jim's lips, and he sipped quickly, noting the beer wasn't half terrible; Moran must have splurged for his last drinking spree.

The Colonel frowned as he watched the bottle, then took it away carefully and finished it off himself, and then promptly sagged onto Jim's chest, curling up like a massive cat and tucking his head under Jim's chin, breathing going slow and deep.

Luckily Jim could still reach his phone.

A half-hour later three men were heaving the sniper off their boss, who seemed to find the entire situation amusing. A doctor came in a moment later, having been briefed by text to be prepared for alcohol overdose. Jim pulled the gun out of the sniper's hand, surprised at how easily it was released; he'd thought it would take far more work to earn the trust of the man who now slept on a bed while he held a gun.

On the other hand he just refused to let go of the beer bottle, empty as it was, and Jim finally snapped, "Oh, stop that. Wrong day to die."

"Right day," the soldier muttered. "Haddit alllll planned."

"Yes, but my plans are better," Jim told him, nodding to the doctor. "And include far more guns. Sleep for you now, I think."

He let the doctor begin to set up an IV to counter the dehydration and strain on the liver before tossing the bottle to the floor and turning to the men who had heaved Moran to the bed. "Get rid of all the alcohol. Colonel Moran will need to be sober for his assignment in the morning."

Jim grinned as he saw the lanky figure in the bed finally relax into unconsciousness. This one was going to be fun.

* * *

I pray you, do not fall in love with me,

For I am falser than vows made in wine.

~William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Written for my tiger, noottersontheflightdeck


End file.
